


Shake Me Sane

by SenkoWakimarin



Series: Author's Recommendations [24]
Category: Punisher (Comics)
Genre: Emotionally Repressed, Hand Jobs, Intercrural Sex, M/M, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-05-31 14:35:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19427959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SenkoWakimarin/pseuds/SenkoWakimarin
Summary: There's no courage in the bottom of a bottle, but there might be a catalyst.





	Shake Me Sane

There’s nothing about alcohol that gives you courage. 

You don’t get brave being drunk. You get stupid, or angry, or apathetic to the consequences enough that you do things you probably wouldn’t were you sober. And because you’re drunk, you do those things sloppy, without finesse or planning, and then sober you maybe don’t regret the outcome but nine times of ten you regret, at the very least, the method.

Frank has always hated the idea of drinking to shore up the nerves. He’s seen plenty of people try it, get schnockered before doing some fool thing. Lotta guys in Basic had been of the opinion that the best time to ask a girl much of anything was drunk, which seemed counter-intuitive to the whole spirit of the exercise in Frank’s opinion.

Maybe whiskey dick isn’t actually a big problem for some guys. Frank wouldn’t know; he doesn’t drink much stronger than beer and even then, rarely to excess.

Something about watching Lieberman makes him reconsider the policy.

Lieberman does not drink often. For a man who so often harps at Frank to take more personal time, to relax, to be easier with himself so as not to burn out, he doesn’t much take his own advice. Lieberman is always wired, always watching or learning or doing. 

He sets his drink up like a surgeon preparing his tools. Everything near to hand, arranged just so, so without looking he can grab what he wants. Whiskey glass just here, bottle to the left, ratty looking paperback to the right. Add ice to glass. Whiskey over ice. Open book. Drink, pretending not to notice Frank watching.

At least, Frank assumes it’s a sham. Lieberman is so damn keyed in the rest of the time, Frank can’t imagine that the presence of alcohol undoes any of that vigilance.

They’ve been working together long enough that Frank can't help having picked up certain patterns. He doesn’t note calendar days, he doesn’t pay much attention to all the subtle little signs of Lieberman’s mood shift, and he sure as  _ hell _ doesn’t ask about the change in routine on these days. The two of them are entangled enough without the cruelty of Frank letting Lieberman think he gives a shit about his past.

June is a rough month for Lieberman, if the rate at which the level of whiskey in the bottle goes down is any indication. He doesn’t drink to get drunk on any night; he drinks until the ice is gone, three cubes at a time, and because it’s near always hot in their shared spaces and because he drinks slow, that’s not too many glasses. 

Any other month, he might do this private little ritual once or twice. June, he’ll do it three nights a week, sometimes more. Never quite getting drunk.

He doesn’t ask Frank to join him. Frank thinks they both have boundaries they’re trying not to cross. 

The thing is --

Frank is not a nice guy. He’s made a fucking career out of that, at this point. He’s not nice, he doesn’t let people get close, he doesn’t know what to do with good things when they happen outside the simplicity of just not dying. He’s not a man people look after, he’s not the kind of guy anyone will mourn much when he finally does bite the bullet, and put plainly, these are all comforting things about himself.

But see, the thing is --

The thing is, everyone has tells. Everyone has rituals, even if they don’t register them. And Lieberman, somehow so incredibly smart but  _ such _ a dumbass,  _ cares _ enough to have learned all of Frank’s.

Lieberman knows all the ugly little signs that the chain keeping Frank's violence in check is weakening. He picks up on all the idiosyncrasies, all the details, and he takes the facts in hand and works with them. Anyone else allowed this close to Frank, seeing him toeing the line of self-destructing the way he does on the worst days, seeing him damn near non-verbal and ready to snap, looking for the goddamn excuse -- anyone else allowed to see him that clear, that close, would put him down the second an opportunity presented itself.

And Lieberman doesn't. Lieberman takes stock and makes adjustments and finds work or finds make-work that's really more like recreation, things Frank does that are so easy, so clean he could carry the op out one handed. He does this without changing a damn thing in how he looks at Frank or talks to Frank; he does it because it's the best, simplest way to make Frank check himself, shore those chains around that slavering, rabid violence broiling in his skull and start acting like a man with a war to conduct again, rather than an animal looking for a fight.

So the thing is, if Lieberman is willing to put that sort of effort in for Frank, what does it say about Frank that he recognizes all the signs of Lieberman's stiff-necked misery and does nothing to step up in any way?

Three months ago, Frank came trudging back to base, that particular time a disused self-storage building off the docks on the Jersey side of the river. He came home -- and that's what it was, by any other definition; he came home to Lieberman with without any of his usual injuries, no busted bones, no internal bleeding, no blood leaking from broken teeth or cuts under his armor. He came home from a job that had taken planning and consideration and had been pulled off fucking beautifully, and it hadn't been enough. He came back as tangled up mean as he'd left and when Lieberman saw that in him he hadn't done any of the sane things.

He hadn't run, he hadn't reached for the compact little handgun he kept strapped to the underside of whatever he was using as a desk wherever they ended up based. 

Frank had had a choice then, too. Lieberman had helped him set up dozens of safe houses and bolt holes, various degrees of security and comfort. Frank had another handful even Lieberman didn't know about, and the van was always an option, mobile. He didn't have to go back to Lieberman, not feeling like that. He can't explain, can't rationalize even in his own head, why he'd chosen what he had. 

Lieberman could have shot him, or tried at the least. There's a fair few less violent, subtler ways Lieberman might go about killing him, too. And maybe, if Frank's honest with himself (admittedly not something he puts much effort in being), it would be better if he made some attempt.

Instead, Lieberman had gotten him patched up, just bandaids and a splint for a busted finger, and then he'd stood over Frank where Frank was sitting, looking at him as he made some private decision, and then he'd nodded and kissed him.

Maybe he'd hoped for something sweet. Frank thinks, something ugly twisting up in his guts, snakes of guilt and shame, that he could have at least let Lieberman have that, have it be sweet.

Frank had shoved him into a wall and they'd grappled, Frank snarling, all that brittle rage and anger pouring out of him like vomit. No words, no kindnesses; he'd touched with the intent of leaving bruises at the least. He made it violent, hard and breathless and angry, and Lieberman let him.

Neither of them are strangers to violence, and Frank might be the more seasoned fighter, but in that… in that, Lieberman had very easily had the upper hand. He bit with just as much venom, pushed and shoved until he had Frank pinned -- willingly, but a pin is a pin, and he kept his touch rough, until Lieberman stroking them both off felt more like a burning punishment than a pleasure, orgasm a whip lashing through him, splitting him open and hollowing him out. 

They didn't talk about it after. Lieberman fixed his pants back proper and walked away to ice the busted lip Frank had given him, and Frank had stayed on the floor with his back to the wall, pants caught around his thighs, bare ass on the cement floor, and fallen asleep just like that.

All that rage and savage anger bled out of him. Not forever, not even for all that long -- even now Frank can feel it, a dog that's never sated, always starving, pacing in his brain, testing the length of its chain. 

But the chain is strong, is the thing. The chain is solid and there's no immediate risk of it snapping unexpectedly, because Lieberman forces him to do all the necessary upkeep, and to learn how to let that dog off its chain in a way that gives him some mastery over it. 

Lieberman puts all that effort in, gives so much of himself to Frank's war, and now he sits there in his own unfettered upset, perhaps not as dangerous as Frank's in the grand scheme of things, but dangerous enough, in its own way. It's dangerous to Lieberman, at the least. He sits there, staring at a book he'll never turn the pages on and drinking whiskey, and Frank does nothing but watch him.

The thing is, Frank doesn't have tasks to set Lieberman to. He can ask Lieberman for any number of things, research here or a hack there, and Lieberman will do it. He'll even talk and joke and smile as he does, and then two nights later he'll be sitting there, sipping whiskey until the ice is gone.

There's no courage found at the bottom of a bottle. Only recklessness, sloppiness, a thousand mistakes made even when you get what you want. 

Frank still thinks a buffer, maybe, something warm and numbing, would make it easier to close the distance yawning between them. It might make it feel more natural to touch Lieberman the way he wants to touch. To say the things he's going to want to say. Make the offer than needs to be made. 

Lieberman pours another glass, and Frank makes himself sit up, makes himself rise from the couch, close the distance, and he takes that glass right out of Lieberman's fingers, drains it, and says, "Get up." When Lieberman grabs for the glass, Frank grabs him with his free hand and twists, not enough to hurt, really, just enough to make him still. “Up,” Frank repeats.

“Goddamn it, Frank,” Lieberman snaps, and when he tries to pull free, Frank hauls him onto his feet. The fight Lieberman makes is far from sincere; he struggles in a way that’s artless and nasty without any of the moves Frank  _ knows _ he could at least try. It’s not exactly preformative -- the anger is real, but it’s not raging fire, it’s not snarling wild.Lieberman’s anger is tamped down by something else, something heavier, and Frank pins him back against the table easily, litting the glass drop onto the table to roll in a lazy arch, dribbling melting ice. 

Even drunk, Frank is certain, Lieberman could put up a better fight. In fact, drunk, he almost certainly would, inhibitions lowered, temper easy to spark. And Lieberman’s not a small man; he’s shown again and again that he knows how to use his weight, how to hit, where to aim. Frank could take him -- it wouldn’t be hard, as far as the physicality of a fight goes -- but not without Lieberman getting a few good shots in himself. Not hand to hand, not in each other’s faces, grappling like this.

This is a choice. This is Lieberman letting him, because under whatever old hurt it is that rises up to an ache he wants to drink away, under the anger of Frank not letting him, under the studious veneer that none of this between them means anything, Lieberman wants it.

Frank knows, because Frank wants it too, and he’s made all the same excuses, all the same sorts of barriers around it. Frank doesn’t drink to drown it; Frank shoots people. That’s the only difference.

Both hands on Lieberman’s wrists, Frank pins the man to the table, leaning into him, sharing breath as he occupies his space, and Lieberman is all tension, damn near shaking with it. His face is a peculiar mask, outrage on the surface but soft around the eyes. Tired and hurt and how long has he been looking like this? How long has Frank let this go on?

“Fuck you,” He breathes, pliant despite his bared teeth. “All the stupid shit you do, and I can’t have one goddamn night to myself? Fuck you, Frank.”

Three months ago, Frank could have killed Lieberman. Shot him, stabbed him, beat him bloody and left him to die slow for the crime of kissing him. Of caring. 

By the same token, Lieberman builds Frank weapons he could rig to blow in his hands. He cooks food for Frank he could lace with poison, cyanide or strychnine, fast or slow and painful. Lieberman sees him when he’s asleep and knows how to use that little gun he keeps near at hand. And Lieberman has never, not once, intentionally hurt Frank.

So Frank shrugs, placid as he holds Lieberman to the table, and he says, “If you want.”

There’s a certain primal pleasure to seeing that hit home. Lieberman is used to hearing all kinds of shit from Frank, including threats, most of which glance off him, the shock hitting him and dissipating away to some other emotion like ripples in a pond. This sinks in and only seems to grow, disbelief, like Lieberman is trying to figure out what Frank  _ actually _ said and how he misheard it.

It feels like a mercy to kiss him at that point, and mercy always feels strange, coming from Frank. Lieberman’s mouth is warm and when Frank lets loose of his hands, Lieberman clutches on and pulls Frank in. He still tastes a little like whiskey, heat and earth, and he kisses like he needs it, like it’s everything. 

Maybe, in that moment, it is. Three months ago in a shitty dockside storage house, reeking of filth off the river and cold, Lieberman’s kissing him had been a lifeline. Something real to focus on, tangible, concrete. A lightning rod for the energy, transmuting it from anger to a wholly different passion. Three months ago, kissing Lieberman, having his hands on him, had been everything, so Frank understands.

He understands, too, that it’s dangerous to find another person so necessary. It’s dangerous for both of them; this is a copperhead curled at his feet, a scorpion walking over his hand; this is something he should be so much more wary of, because it’s going to bite him, sting him, and if it doesn’t manage to kill him, it’s going to hurt like fuck while it tries.

Since waking up on the cold floor, room still dark, head full of the cotton left by waking too sudden from deep sleep, Frank hasn’t been quite able to stop thinking about getting Lieberman in bed. A real, actual bed, in his more indulgent jack off fantasies, but sometimes just hearing the creak of a shitty camp bed frame paints vivid pictures of what it would be like, Lieberman shoving him down the way he’d shoved him into the wall, the sound of the frame screeching with the fervor of Lieberman’s hands on them both. 

Fucking on one of those is both completely out of the question and extremely appealing, the way the idea of fucking anywhere they might be walked in on was shamefully, humiliatingly appealing. 

Frank thinks about trying to drag Lieberman away from the table and toward the space that’s set up for sleeping. He thinks about trying to make it, if not sweet, at least a little more comfortable. Then, as he’s trying to pull away enough to say something, Lieberman gets a hand on his ass and makes this noise, complaint and threat at the same time, and Frank decides fucking by the table isn’t really that much different. Fucking  _ on _ the table would even be acceptable at this point, come to that, but he doesn’t think he’s patient enough to move all the breakable shit out of the way first.

Three months, Frank’s been thinking about this. Wanting it and knowing he can’t, mustn’t, shouldn’t ever go after it. Doing this, reaching for it, taking it -- this is like picking up that scorpion and baiting the sting. 

And now, here he is, letting Lieberman move them so he’s the one shoved up against the table, gasping at the feeling of teeth against his neck, not thinking, not about danger or how easily this could be turned to violence or anything, really, except how fucking  _ good _ it is to have Lieberman at his throat, mouthing over his pulsepoint, a hand shoved between them to palm Frank’s cock through his jeans. 

It’s stupid, how good it feels. How easy it seems. How, in the moment, it seems more stupid that he’s let it wait three months since the first time to get seconds.

“Fuck, Frank,” Lieberman grinds out, panting a frustrated breath as he tries to get past the trick of Frank’s belt. Frank takes advantage of the tiny bit of space between them to help out, leaning into the table and unbuckling the belt and popping the buttons on his fly before Lieberman’s hand is shoving his out of the way, pushing into his jeans to grip him through his underwear. “The things I wanna do to you...”

“Do ‘em,” Frank breathes, too horny to think, “show me, c’mon.”

Lieberman bites him. He digs his teeth into Frank’s shoulder slowly, right at the collar of his ratty tank top. It’s going to leave a mark, the way he’s worrying the spot, and Frank is suffused with the embarrassing realization that he wishes it was somewhere harder to hide, that mark. He shivers when Lieberman breathes in his ear. “Turn around,” he orders, squeezing Frank again and then pulling his hand away. “Turn around, lemme --”

Frank obeys. It’s really too late for second thoughts, too late for worry or doubt. 

Immediately, Lieberman tugs his pants down, getting them over his thighs so when he shifts his feet apart they drop to his ankles, and this is going to be messy, he can tell; it’s going to be fast and nasty and they’re both too desperate for it to care. Three months, it’s been three months since anyone touched him like this. Unless he’s very much mistaken, it’s been exactly as long for Lieberman.

Shoved up against his back, Lieberman is a hot, insistent weight. When he buries his face against Frank’s shoulder, Frank can feel how hard he is, pressed against his bare ass. Lieberman hasn’t made any move to get his own dick out yet, busy feeling Frank up, hands dragging from chest to groin. Frank didn’t think far enough ahead to have gotten any kind of lube and he sort of doubts Lieberman has anything either, but that barely matters now.

At this point, he’ll take anything, anything Lieberman will give him, shifting restlessly to get friction on that clothed erection even as Lieberman wraps a hand around him and starts working him, getting him fully hard in a few strokes.

“You smell so good, fuck,” Lieberman growls against his shoulder. His glasses dig in uncomfortably, even with Frank’s shirt in the way. 

Frank makes a low noise, teeth clenched to try and bite it back.”Perv,” He says, like either of them can ignore the fact that he’s leaking in Lieberman’s fist now, beyond turned on. “Get your dick out.”

Lieberman’s laugh shakes into Frank’s bones, the softness of his body making him feel all the more like he’s surrounding Frank, pinning him. It should be terrible, should scare him how utterly out of control Frank feels like this, but it’s not. He gave the control away, handed it off to Lieberman, and that makes all the difference.

Just the sound of Lieberman’s zipper being drawn makes Frank restless, and his breath catches as Lieberman pushes him forward, making him catch himself against the table.

“One of these days,” Lieberman says, letting his cock slide against the cleft of Frank’s ass, making him twitch forward, immediately rocking back, desperate. “God, one of these days, I’m gonna fuck you proper.”

Frank manages to keep the too-eager demand for that day to be  _ now, right now _ smothered, biting down on the words before they can leave. Getting fucked raw, just spit and sweat to slick them up sounds good, but Frank’s got a feeling he’d appreciate it a lot less tomorrow. Even hard and in the moment, Lieberman looks out for him. He bites his lip and tries to keep still, memorizing the feel of Lieberman’s hands holding him open, the length and girth of his cock pressed against him, the bite of Lieberman’s open zipper against his skin. 

It’s hot, they’re both sweating, and Frank is just about shaking with the restraint it takes to keep his palms flat on the table, letting Leiberman feel him up, back and front, touching wherever he wants as he grinds against Frank’s ass. He wants to touch himself, or tell Lieberman to do it for him. He wants to get fucked, however much it would hurt like this, wants to feel that huge, hot dick inside, forcing his body open. He wants more control; he wants less control. 

“Push your legs together,” Lieberman tells him, and Frank obeys without hesitation. “Bend over the table a little, yeah.”

Lieberman is a fire behind him. Where Frank had been artless rage turned to sex, biting and bruising and dragging Lieberman in with a fist in his hair, Lieberman touches only in ways that feel good. Even the drag of his teeth on Frank’s skin feels good, the mark sucked onto his shoulder still aching sweetly. 

The slide of Lieberman’s cock between his thighs is unexpectedly good. Sweaty as they both are, there’s more drag than is probably strictly comfortable, but Lieberman just encourages him to hold still, just like that, fucking between his legs. The head of his cock pressing against the back of Frank’s balls makes Frank moan, unable to help it; the sound works its way out of him each time, and when Lieberman gets his hand on his cock again, Frank chokes on a louder, more desperate sound.

Frank’s elbow is in a puddle of melted ice, and each thrust of Lieberman’s hips rocks him against the table, rattling the overturned glass and the whiskey bottle. He tries to focus on that, external details; the water is tepid, the glass against the tabletop sounds hollow and loud. If he focuses on the rest he’s going to cum way too soon. The soft, greedy noises of appreciation Lieberman makes as he fucks Frank’s thighs make Frank want more, want to  _ give _ more. 

He grunts a low noise when Lieberman bites at his shoulder blade, teeth sharp even through his shirt. Next time, next time he’s going to insist they take their shirts off; he wants more skin-on-skin, more contact, more of Lieberman touching, biting. Lieberman clutching his hip in one hand, fucking him, using him...

Squeezing just so, Lieberman’s hand on his cock is just right; tight and hot and slick with Frank’s own precum. Frank wants to writhe, wants to buck into the grip, but he keeps still, head hung as Lieberman breathes filth against his back. His thumb sweeps over the head, pushing the foreskin back and gathering precum, and Frank is so close. Judging by the unsteadiness of Lieberman’s motions, he is too, and Frank holds it, breath coming in these terrible, gasping utterances, until Lieberman rocks in especially hard and cums. 

Frank can feel all of it, every twitch of his dick, cum slick and wet all down his thighs, his balls. Hot, dripping, coated; there’s something about it, something about being marked that way, sticky with it as Lieberman keeps up that steady, hard wringing with his hand. Frank has one frantic, incoherent thought about how much  _ better _ if would be with Lieberman buried inside him, and cums without warning, splattering the edge of the table and the floor beneath it.

“Christ.” Lieberman pants, mouth still against Frank’s back. He shifts, and Frank’s not sure -- he’ll think about it for a long time, never sure -- but he thinks Lieberan kisses him, on the shoulder, brief and sweet before he’s pulling away, staggering back to drop himself into the chair he’d been sitting in before. “Fuck, Frank.”

It takes Frank a little longer to reconstitute his brains after they shoot out his dick like that. He keeps his head bowed as he pushes himself to stand a little straighter, the impulsively reaches for the whiskey glass and rights it. 

“You wanna tell me what the fuck that was about?”

There’s a lot of things Frank could say to that. He could say Lieberman doesn’t need an explanation for everything. He could say something pithy and dismissive, something like ‘I was horny and you were here’. He could say something damningly honest, something about Lieberman acting like he’s alone when Frank’s right there, about camaraderie. 

He says, “Got tired of watching you mope.”

Lieberman snorts a soft sound, still breathing heavy. Frank can’t meet his eye at first, then when he can, he can’t look away. Lieberman’s eyes are bright and piercing, and Frank feels seen in a way he doesn’t usually. Reminds him of being cornered by the priests back in school, the understanding, the cool assessment, the very private unravelling that kind of look seemed to do. If Frank weren’t a full grown adult, he’s pretty sure he’s squirm where he’s standing and apologize.

Then Lieberman scoffs and shakes his head, leaning back into the chair, tilting his head at the ceiling. “Bring lube next time,” he says, and smiles when Frank mimics his scoff.

“Presumptuous.”

That gets him a laugh, soft but genuine. “No, Frank. Just planning ahead.”


End file.
